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Yesterday I attend an event to help spread the message about Cash for Containers. It was great to help out Surfrider Foundation, Boomerang Alliance and local scout groups. So what is Cash For Containers? Cash for Containers is like a reverse vending machine where you put in plastic bottles, cans and glass bottles to be recycled and you get ten cents back for each one. But this is only in South Austraila, Northern Territory and Tasmania.

There are huge campaigns to get Cash for Containers in Queensland. We need it here in Queensland because:

Queensland is Australia's most littered state

Not one Australian beach is litter free

Snakes and lizards can get their heads stuck in littered cans

Littered water bottles pollute the environment

Making a new can from a recycled uses 95% less engery than making a new can from scratch

Check out this campaign 'For The Love Of'. As a member of the AYCC (Australian Youth Climate Coalition) I will be helping to raise money for 'For The Love Of' campaign and you can too. All you need to do is go without Chocolate, Beer or Coffee until the 24th of April. This will help raise vital funds to help save the Great Barrier Reef.

The Great Barrier Reef is home to 1,500 types of fish, 411 types of hard coral, one-third of the world's soft corals, 134 species of sharks and rays, 6 out of seven of the world's marine turtles, 3,000 molluscs, thousands of different types of sponges, worms and crustaceans, 630 types of starfish and sea urchins, 215 birds species and more than 30 species of marine mammals!There is clearly a lot of life in the Great Barrier Reef.

This morning I attended a tree planting morning that was organised as part of the Gold Coast City Council Naturally GC program. The tree planting day was at Mudgeeraba Creek Robina and we planted 1000 trees. The council is working to regenerate the area so everyone can enjoy this wonderful natural environment and so far they have planted 17,000 trees! It was part of National Youth Week and Connect to Your Creek Week. Naturally GC puts on hundreds of events throughout the year such as, bee keeping, nature photography, guided bushwalking and restoration programs, just to name a few. The events are focused on improving the Gold Coast environment and reconnecting kids and the Gold Coast community with nature. It is so important to connect kids with nature as early as possible because if they aren't connected with nature they will not care for it and work to protect it. I encourage everyone to take part in nature based activities and see how wonderful our natural environment is. If you would like to find some Naturally GC activities that are of interest to you check out the program here.

​Yesterday I went into Healesville Sanctuary to check out their inspiring work to help save the Helmeted Honeyeater.

These Honeyeaters are classed as critically endangered. Their threats are habitat destruction, competition with bell miners and feral animals

​Healesville has been involved with the conservation of this species since 1989 and are focused on increasing the number of wild Helmeted Honeyeaters. Three years ago there were only around 85 birds left in the wild.

To help increase the chances of survival of the birds released by Healesville they started a stranger danger program to help the Honeyeater know that predators like goshawks were something to be scared of and to hide. The first step of this training is to show the Honeyeater a model of the goshawk and play alarm calls from other bird species. The second step to this training is to fly a real goshawk in the a aviary next to the Honeyeaters (there are no other birds in that aviary) and play alarm calls. Since this traing has started the survival rate of the birds released has gone from about 30% to 80%. There are now 191 Helmeted Honeyeaters in the wild and they will continue to help save these amazing birds.